Center Quentin Shore, who will follow his two older brothers to DU next year, is just one of three former Front Range-raised hockey players in tonight’s lineup for the U.S. 18-under team in its exhibition game against the Pioneers at Magness Arena. Man-child defensemen Seth Jones (6-3, 201) was born in Dallas and Gavin Stoick (6-3, 219) in Portland, Ore., but both played for the Colorado Thunderbirds.

Jones, the son of former NBA player and Nuggets assistant coach Popeye Jones, played for the Arapahoe Warriors (Tier II) before joining the T-Birds at the U12 level. He then moved back to Dallas when his father took a job with the Mavericks. Jones, who is wearing the “C” for Team USA, could be a first-round NHL draft pick in 2013 (he just turned 17 on Monday). His older brother, Justin Jones, was on DU’s roster a year ago as a freshman but things didn’t work out. Word is Seth Jones, who is uncommitted for next season, will go the major-junior route.

Don’t know much about Stoick other than he played for the T-Birds at U14 and U16 and, like Quentin Shore, joined the U.S. National Development Program’s U17 team a year ago. He is also uncommitted and relatively young (turned 17 in July).

Thunderbirds director/U16 coach Angelo Ricci, a former DU standout in the 1990s, coached Shore, Jones and Stoick at some point — as well as former TBirds and current Pioneers Nick Shore, Daniel Doremus, Josiah Didier and Matt Tabrum. Ricci has a game at 7:30 and will thus miss watching all these young men compete tonight, but is undoubtedly a proud dude.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.